BMI Is More Useful for Fat-Shaming Than Calculating Health, Study Finds

In 7th grade, my gym teacher measured my body mass index (BMI) and told me I was overweight and, therefore, unhealthy. I ate mostly healthy foods, I played sports, and I practiced drinking eight glasses of water a day just like everyone told me to. My mother took me to my doctor, and she told me that based on my BMI, I should lose 10-15 pounds, despite being in “generally good health.” Yeah, I was confused too. So, despite being generally healthy, a doctor still recommends losing weight. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call fat-shaming, and a new study from the International Journal of Obsesity just revealed that in many cases, BMI is just completely wrong.

BMI is found by dividing a person's weight (in kilograms) by their height (in meters), and depending on the number you get, you can then classify that person as underweight, overweight, normal, or obese. In the last few years, studies are popping up to suggest BMI is a worthless way to measure health.

The study discovered that 47% of overweight people, 29% of people considered obese, and 15% of people who are considered “very obese”, were actually metabolically healthy. Lastly, more than 30% of people in the “normal” weight range are actually unhealthy based on their other health data. This is huge.

“Many people see obesity as a death sentence,” said A. Janet Tomiyama, an assistant professor of psychology in the UCLA College and the study’s lead author. “But the data show there are tens of millions of people who are overweight and obese and are perfectly healthy.”

“There are healthy people who could be penalized based on a faulty health measure, while the unhealthy people of normal weight will fly under the radar and won’t get charged more for their health insurance,” she said.

The researchers conclude that by “using BMI categories as the main indicator of health, an estimated 74,936,678 U.S. adults are misclassified as cardiometabolically unhealthy or cardiometabolically healthy."

Scientists are still working on alternatives to BMI, but the real answer may be that every individual should get their health fully checked out by their doctor, rather than their doctor relying on a calculation to determine their patient’s health.